


The Red Rug

by eiluned



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Vignette, a series of vignettes actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiluned/pseuds/eiluned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha wasn't sure why she picked out a red rug, but it fit well into her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Red Rug

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the cottoncandy_bingo prompt: "red carpet." Thanks to Amanda and Sidhe for the beta reads! Feedback will be given a loving home.

1

Natasha wasn't sure why she picked out a red rug. Red's always been kind of a touchy color for her for obvious reasons, and she's always tended to avoid large splashes of it in her clothing and her decorating choices.

But the rug was beautiful, darkening shades of red splayed out on the petals of an abstract flower that brought to mind a lotus. Lotus flowers had always intrigued her, even before she learned about what they symbolize for Buddhists: the original nature of the heart.

She had fought against her own heart for so long, what she felt versus what she should feel. But she left all of that behind, all of the training and conditioning and brainwashing, to put an honest word to it. Her ideas of right and wrong may be a little different from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s other "heroes," but she gave up on following other people's morals. She listened to her own heart and did what she thought was right.

Clint found her staring at the rug, her arms crossed over her chest. "This one?" he said, a dubious look on his face.

Pursing her lips, Natasha tilted her head to the side a little. "I dunno," she answered. "I... like it."

He tilted his head to match hers, staring at the rug. "It's a little... red," he commented, and she shot him a half-grin.

"Strangely enough, I noticed that," she replied, and he grinned back at her. "But I like it."

That left him with nothing to do but sigh and rest his hand on the small of her back. "Okay," he said. "But I get to pick the couch."

 

2

They had a little apartment on the Upper West Side, bought together when they finally gave up on the pretense that they weren't a couple. And they weren't, at least not a couple like their neighbors. Instead of shopping together or walking the dog, they ran missions together and took down international crime cartels. But they came home and patched each other up and cooked together and slept in the same bed, so they were a couple.

The red rug went well with the dark grey couch that Clint had picked out.

 

3

He lay her back on the red carpet, stripped away her clothes and proceeded to slowly and methodically blow her mind.

The pile was too low to grab hold of, so she slid her hands up above her head, feeling the wool against her palms. It was soft underneath her naked back, and she arched up off of it when he put his mouth between her legs.

Her thighs tensed against his grip, her fingernails digging into the rug and a cry rising in her throat, and he looked up at her, a grin crinkling the corner of his eyes as he lapped at her.

"You gonna come for me?" he hummed, rubbing his stubbled chin against her.

She made a noise halfway between a gasp and a laugh, her body seizing up with pleasure when he closed his lips around her clit again and sucked lightly.

When she had shuddered it out and collapsed back on the rug, he crawled on top of her, hitching her legs around his hips and sliding inside of her. And then they were moving together, gasping and clutching at each other, laughing at the sheer pleasure of taking each other's bodies.

Afterward they lay sprawled out on the floor, fingers entwined and sweat cooling on their skin.

"Hey, Tasha," Clint said, tickling the palm of her hand with his fingertip.

"Hm?"

"I like this rug."

 

4

They were both bleeding. Not enough to need an actual doctor--just minor cuts and scrapes--so they went home instead of to the medlab. Clint disappeared into the bathroom for the first aid kit, and Natasha sat down on the rug.

She patched him up first, since he had a deeper laceration on his forearm that needed a couple of butterfly closures. When the bandages switched hands, she realized that the cut on her leg had bled enough through the rip in her suit to drip onto the rug.

"Damn," she said, wincing as he sprayed antiseptic onto the wound. "I bled on the carpet."

Clint handed her an extra gauze pad, and she tried to mop up the little spot of blood as he checked the cut and put a butterfly closure across it. The blood had already soaked into the wool, though, and though she could clean off the part that was still wet, there was now a darker splotch on one of the red petals.

"All good," Clint said, snapping the kit closed. "Want me to get something to clean up the carpet?"

It had been a rare close-to-home mission, busting up a human trafficking organization based in the Port Jersey container terminal. And it was close to home in more than just location; the container they'd opened contained thirty Eastern European girls, the oldest maybe 17. When one of the girls realized that they were being rescued, she'd hugged Natasha around the waist, sobbing against her.

She didn't have to tell Clint why she had held the girl for a long moment, why she was fighting back tears when the police took the girl along with all the others away, why she had been silent all the way home.

He knew.

"Y'know, I can't even see the spot," he said, and she looked up to find him giving her a little smile.

If she were to stand up and step back, she wouldn't even be able to see the blood on the red lotus. It was just another drop against a sea of red, like a single drop of blood on her heart.

"It blends in well," she agreed.

 

5

When the Chitauri invasion was all over, Loki sent back to Asgard in chains, they finally had a chance to go back home.

They had both been on separate missions for the last several months. Natasha's mission at Stark Enterprises had taken a good, long while, and after that, she was sent to Russia to follow a promising lead on weapons trafficking. Clint, meanwhile, had been in New Mexico first to provide specialized backup to Coulson's mission, and then he'd been assigned to babysit Selvig and the Tesseract.

And the first time they had met in months, they tried to kill each other.

Natasha toed off her boots and walked to the rug, sitting at the center of the flower, and after a moment, Clint followed her.

"C'mere," she said, looking up at him.

He was tired, worn, exhausted, and he hesitated. She knew him too well; she knew what he was thinking, that he was still choking on his guilt, that he didn't trust himself anymore. She could read it in the lines around his eyes, the tightness of his mouth, the way he didn't meet her eyes.

"Clint," she said, reaching up to take his hand. "Sit with me."

She helped him lower himself down to the rug, wincing in sympathy with him. They were battered, both from the battle on the streets and from their own fight, and she ached all over. All she wanted was to curl up with him and not move for a couple of days.

She was so grateful that she had him back that it nearly overwhelmed her. But Clint was still suffering, and he needed more than she did, more from her than to just sleep beside her.

"Will you look at me?" she said softly.

Meeting her eyes seemed to break the dam, and he suddenly poured out everything, all the fear and guilt and horror he felt about what he had done... no, what had been done to him. They weren't the type to sit around and talk about their feelings, so when it did happen, it was always a torrent of emotion. She let it wash over her, soaked it in so she could find a way to help him through it.

By the time he had exhausted himself of talking, they were lying on their sides on the plush carpet. He curled close to her, tucking his leg gingerly between hers, and she wrapped her arm around him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

"Natasha, I'm so sorry," he whispered, pressing his face against her shirt. "I should--"

"Stop," she said quietly. "Stop, Clint. I know you don't believe it yet, but there wasn't anything you could have or should have done differently. Do you know how to fight off... alien mind control or whatever the hell that was? Because I don't, and I like to think I'm smarter than you."

He let out a snort of laughter, lifting his head to look at her. "You're smarter than me?" he said hoarsely. "Dream on, Romanoff."

That made her smile, and she leaned in to press a kiss against his lips. "It wasn't your fault, Clint," she murmured, resting her forehead against his. "And I'm going to keep telling you that until you believe it."

His lips curved in a weak smile, and she kissed him again, long and slow, holding him close.

 

6

The red rug went well with the grey couch and the little apartment and their life together.


End file.
